[SOLVED] I just ran my Ryzen 5 5600x without cooler for 5 minutes (Only for flashing BIOS). It was very hot when i touched it. Did i damage my CPU?

[dhantu]

Hey all. I am a newbie builder here and i think i made a mistake for letting my motherboard flash the BIOS with CPU on and without CPU cooler.

My motherboard is MSI b550m pro-vdh wifi. It has a flash bios feature which allows you to update your BIOS without CPU

I thought since it can run without CPU, it will not use my CPU when plugged in. So i stupidly plugged in my Ryzen 5 5600x into the motherboard without installing a cooler while i am flashing my BIOS for around 5 minutes

After the motherboard finished installing the BIOS, i turned off the power supply. Waited for few seconds and then i randomly touched my CPU just out of curiosity

To my surprise, my CPU was very hot. it must have used the CPU processing power somehow, and it doesn't have any form of cooling while doing that.

It was not overly hot that my pain reflexes pulled my hands out of the way instantly, but it was still very hot that i can't maintain my finger in that spot for longer than a fraction of a second... Not to mention i waited few second before touching it so it must have cooled down a bit.

now i know most modern CPU has some sort of thermal protection which will shut itself down on certain level of heat. In this case, however, it was situated in flash bios environment, and im not sure if that whether the thermal protection still works in that situation?

Also, Ryzen 5 5600x has a pretty low TDP (65w), so the heat should not reach alarming level when running at base clock speed (such as in BIOS environment). Am i correct to assume this?

Thank you and i hope someone here could shed some light on whether i damaged my CPU or not. And what should i do to test my CPU for any thermal damage?

 

[jay32267]

I think....most likely not. CPUs are pretty tough.

I would run it and see how it runs.

I would also download and install HWInfo....and look at the clocks and the temps and core voltages to see if everything looks normal.

If everything acted normal and looked normal I would leave it be.

 

[dhantu]

I think....most likely not. CPUs are pretty tough.

I would run it and see how it runs.

I would also download and install HWInfo....and look at the clocks and the temps and core voltages to see if everything looks normal.

If everything acted normal and looked normal I would leave it be.

Thanks for the reply. ok, i am donwloading the software now.

Is there anything that i can use as a parameter to say that my CPU core voltages/clocks/temps are normal?

 

[scout_03]

you been lucky so use a cooler on it and check it carefully if you dont want to buy another .

 

[jay32267]

Thanks for the reply. ok, i am donwloading the software now.

Is there anything that i can use as a parameter to say that my CPU core voltages/clocks/temps are normal?

First off....I think that if you install it....and it seems to run normal to you....that might tell you more than any information we can get from any software....but as far as HWInfo.

The base and boost clock for your CPU is 3.7 and 4.6 GHz.
These are the frequencies you will see the cores generally running at....although in idle they can run at much less. I would check to see that it's running at the base and boost clock frequencies under load.
Also....the core voltages are usually around 1.0-1.3....this can vary....but I would just make sure they are in the ballpark.
The temps....I wouldn't want the max temp to go above around 75C.

 

[Wolfshadw]

Thanks for the reply. ok, i am donwloading the software now.

Is there anything that i can use as a parameter to say that my CPU core voltages/clocks/temps are normal?

Just curious... you HAVE installed the CPU cooler before this, yes?

-Wolf sends

 

[dhantu]

you been lucky so use a cooler on it and check it carefully if you dont want to buy another .

Yeah, i installed cooler master hyper 212 LED since then. It seems normal though, but not sure about the reduced lifespan due to that 5 minutes mistake.

First off....I think that if you install it....and it seems to run normal to you....that might tell you more than any information we can get from any software....but as far as HWInfo.

The base and boost clock for your CPU is 3.7 and 4.6 GHz.
These are the frequencies you will see the cores generally running at....although in idle they can run at much less. I would check to see that it's running at the base and boost clock frequencies under load.
Also....the core voltages are usually around 1.0-1.3....this can vary....but I would just make sure they are in the ballpark.
The temps....I wouldn't want the max temp to go above around 75C.

Yeah, the readings from the software seems normal though (below those parameters in idle situation). I actually managed to run 3dmark and the cpu temp wouldn't go past 70 C so i guess everything is fine.. hopefully..

What about my CPU's lifespan though? did i reduced it somehow?

Just curious... you HAVE installed the CPU cooler before this, yes?

-Wolf sends

Yes of course haha. i installed cooler master hyper 212 LED before even installing windows

 

[jay32267]

"
What about my CPU's lifespan though? did i reduced it somehow?
"

I don't think we can be definitive with that....but I think think most likely....no.
As I said....CPUs are pretty tough.

The bottom line is...I would use. It may last forever the way it is.

 

[dhantu]

"
What about my CPU's lifespan though? did i reduced it somehow?
"

I don't think we can be definitive with that....but I think think most likely....no.
As I said....CPUs are pretty tough.

The bottom line is...I would use. It may last forever the way it is.

thank you for the reassurance!

I just run a quick UserBenchmark and it turns out my CPU perform better that other users with the same spec.

 

[King_V]

But also . . NEVER do that again!

 

[drea.drechsler]

The most likel

...
Is there anything that i can use as a parameter to say that my CPU core voltages/clocks/temps are normal?

Basically I'd check if it's boosting as it should, to high enough clocks on light work loads.

Also, as far as affecting life...doing that almost certainly did if it got extremely hot. But losing 5 years of life on a 20 year processor useful life is really kind of meaningless.

 

[jay32267]

thank you for the reassurance!

I just run a quick UserBenchmark and it turns out my CPU perform better that other users with the same spec.

Good!
I'm not all that shocked.
As I said...they're pretty tough.
Now I would just use it.
Every so often I go into HWInfo just to check things though.
HWInfo will also give you PSU voltages and GPU temps and other information that's useful.

 

[Deleted member 2720853]

Never do that again.

 

[cryoburner]

Also, as far as affecting life...doing that almost certainly did if it got extremely hot. But losing 5 years of life on a 20 year processor useful life is really kind of meaningless.

I suspect it wouldn't have affected the processor life to any significant degree. Modern processors should underclock themselves automatically to prevent damage from overheating, and the computer should automatically shut down if critical temperatures are reached. I can't say for sure whether that functionality would be fully active during a "CPU-less" BIOS flash, but I suspect the processor would have still been throttling itself.

As for feeling uncomfortably hot to the touch, such thermal protections won't fully kick-in until processor cores get around 100C, or roughly the temperature of boiling water, so it wouldn't be surprising if parts of the heat-spreader got close to those temperatures. AMD themselves have said that temperatures up to 95C should not affect the life cycle of a Ryzen 5600X, and are are considered "typical and by design" for full load conditions.

As another example, there have been plenty of people whose CPU coolers have come loose and lost proper contact with the processor, and they didn't figure out why their computer was running poorly until discovering that the CPU cores were hitting 100C temperatures and throttling to protect themselves, in some cases days or weeks later. Even that generally doesn't noticeably harm the processors though.

I would also suspect that a CPU, under normal conditions, will last much longer than 20 years. It's probably one of the least likely components in a computer to fail.

 

[dhantu]

I suspect it wouldn't have affected the processor life to any significant degree. Modern processors should underclock themselves automatically to prevent damage from overheating, and the computer should automatically shut down if critical temperatures are reached. I can't say for sure whether that functionality would be fully active during a "CPU-less" BIOS flash, but I suspect the processor would have still been throttling itself.

As for feeling uncomfortably hot to the touch, such thermal protections won't fully kick-in until processor cores get around 100C, or roughly the temperature of boiling water, so it wouldn't be surprising if parts of the heat-spreader got close to those temperatures. AMD themselves have said that temperatures up to 95C should not affect the life cycle of a Ryzen 5600X, and are are considered "typical and by design" for full load conditions.

As another example, there have been plenty of people whose CPU coolers have come loose and lost proper contact with the processor, and they didn't figure out why their computer was running poorly until discovering that the CPU cores were hitting 100C temperatures and throttling to protect themselves, in some cases days or weeks later. Even that generally doesn't noticeably harm the processors though.

I would also suspect that a CPU, under normal conditions, will last much longer than 20 years. It's probably one of the least likely components in a computer to fail.

Thanks for your response. You really helped me to not worrying too much on the damage on my CPU

I figured that even though the CPU did not throttle/shutdown itself, the heat is not overly extreme as when i touched it, i did not jerk my hands out of relfexes. I read that metals around 80-90 celcius would definitely burn you upon touching, but it didn't burn my finger immediately, so i suppose it was around 60-70 celcius at that time.

 

[Deleted member 2720853]

Why did you do this in the first place? I fail to understand that.

 

[dhantu]

Why did you do this in the first place? I fail to understand that.

It's a stupid mistake, really.. I installed the CPU immediately when i unboxed the motherboard. The motherboard's manual says that you can flash the BIOS without installing CPU, so i did not bother to uninstall the CPU before flashing the BIOS as i thought that the motherboard wouldn't use the CPU.

 

[Deleted member 2720853]

Well, now you know that it does. I'm both surprised and glad you didn't end up with a paperweight CPU.

 

[dhantu]

Well, now you know that it does. I'm both surprised and glad you didn't end up with a paperweight CPU.

yeah i've been lucky it did not end up to become paperweight and all of the benchmark readings seems good, including prime95 stress test, but i might have compromised the CPU's longevity a bit, but oh well, i need to own my mistakes and live with it.

 

[Deleted member 2720853]

I'm sure you'll replace it before it even begins thinking about dying.

 

[Juan_Bijero]

We don't really learn much from our successes or even other persons mistakes - only from our own mistakes, provided we are willing to own up to them so +100 for owning up to yours!

 

[xravenxdota]

Can anyone still remember the old amd cpu's?You would run it for 1 min without a cooler and it would burn out.That time the intels didn't.My brothers old intel ran at 140c for weeks cause his fan stopped working.Good old days went intel still made good products.

 

[dhantu]

hey i know this issue is solved already, but i just learned that silicone (the main element of CPUs) are able to indefinitely maintain 150 celcius with almost no change in its properties (and 200 celcius for several thousand hours, even 300 celcius for several hundred hours). The THERMTRIP# signal on most CPUs are triggered at 115 - 130 celcius, so i think CPUs will be fine in the event of extreme thermals.

i guess the problem lies in the motherboard.. capacitors doesn't take extreme heat too well, so the worst case scenario will be my motherboard failing sooner than expected.. please correct me if im wrong..